The problem is a lot of MMA gyms are not devoting the time to non sparring defense instruction. I know I didn't That is why I quit. I just got tossed to the fucking wolves. Most of the shit I learned came for the fucking internet. And when I read about training schedules at other gyms all I see is the same shit. NO time given to non sparring defense instruction.
My gym is very defense-heavy but I suppose that may be because it was founded as a Krav Maga school and the first thing you learn in Krav Maga is to always be aware of an exit to run away!
My boxing instructor spends a lot of time on defense. Even our warm-up is defense oriented as he has ropes strung at should-height from corner to corner of the ring and we have to shadowbox while ducking the ropes. He also walks around with a foam "noodle" and will hit us randomly if we're doing bag work and we drop our hands. Then with the pad work every combination contains at least one defensive move, often an initial slip and maybe a duck in the middle (for example: slip-1-2-3-duck-2). Then we do partner exercises where one guy is purely defensive and has to read whether to block low or high (and we're allowed to choose whether high block can be slip instead). Then we do light sparring and one guy has to be purely defense which results in practicing moving out of range in the ring or else being up against the ropes doing the Mohammed Ali thing. Only after that do we do our free sparring. What I just described is our standard two hour session (usually some skipping before and some roadwork after).
Now that I write it all out, I can say that actually my instructor is actually quite focussed on defense.